


Uniform

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Clothing, F/M, Uniforms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 01:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5028172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She has spent so much of her life in suits and scrubs</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uniform

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: later seasons  
> A/N: Written for the XF Writing Challenge, prompt was "clothes".  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

She has spent so much of her life in suits and scrubs. It's funny, the contrast between them: the scrubs sloppy around her waist and shoulders, her suits tailored to perfection (after years of wondering how Mulder found the right cut every time and finally realizing he had someone who knew the breadth of his shoulders and the length of his inseam). The two sides of her life are only compatible on a slant. The medical professional does no harm. The officer of the law does what it takes. 

In her off-hours she hardly knows what to wear. Her favorite sweater is a low-cut cardigan she only wears around the house, with no camisole under it. It feels daring, in a comfortable sort of way. She doesn't own jeans. She's got nowhere to wear them, and besides, the boxy cut makes her look even shorter. Jeans are civilian clothes, and she's always on duty. But at home she can tie her hair up and let her neckline down, and no one will look at her and see someone small.

(Years later she'll own jeans, once designers have cycled through flared leg and low-waisted and compromised on slim-fit with a reasonable rise. She'll wear jeans on the run, with a wig and a t-shirt, and jeans in their unremarkable house, with boots and a down vest against the chill in the air at the farmer's market as she and Mulder roll cabbages and apples between their hands. She will try on the uniform of a woman with nothing more on her mind than her job and her mortgage. It will not fit her as well as her suits did.)

Mulder doesn't seem to notice what she wears most of the time, but she likes the picture they make together: black suits, black shoes, stern faces, the promise of a holstered weapon. There's power in the uniform. When they walk into a room, people go quiet. 

She notices what he wears. She likes how the blue Oxford brings out the green in his eyes. She likes the way the grey t-shirt clings across his chest. Clothes are easy for Mulder. Even his sweatpants hang from his hips in just the right way. 

(On the run, she'll watch him shrug in and out of a hundred outfits, a hundred identities. They'll undress each other, strip away all the layers, find the truth underneath the disguises. The time she feels easiest in her skin is wrapped in his arms.)


End file.
